| Bridge Name: | Merchants Bridge |
| Official Name: | Merchants Memorial Mississippi Rail Bridge |
| Owner: | Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis |
| Carries: | Freight and passenger traffic Union Pacific, BNSF, Amtrak |
| Crosses: | Mississippi River |
| Locale: | St. Louis, Missouri, and Venice, Illinois |
| Design: | Steel truss bridge |
| Mainspan: | 520feet |
| Length: | 2490feet |
| Clearance: | 83feet |
| Capacity: | 70 trains per day |
| Num Track: | 2 |
| Open: | 1889 |
| Rebuilt: | 2022 |
| Coordinates: | 38.6747°N -90.1861°W |
| Traffic: | 32.3 trains per day [1] |
The Merchants Bridge, officially the Merchants Memorial Mississippi Rail Bridge, is a rail bridge crossing the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and Venice, Illinois. The bridge is owned by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. It opened in May 1889 and crosses the river 3miles north of the Eads Bridge.[2]
The bridge was originally built by the St. Louis Merchants Exchange after it lost control of the Eads Bridge it had built to the Terminal Railroad. The Exchange feared a Terminal Railroad monopoly on the bridges but it would eventually lose control of the Merchants Bridge also.
In 2018 work began on an extensive renovation of the bridge projected to cost $172 million.[3] In September 2022 the Terminal Railroad completed the large reconstruction project, doubling the bridge's capacity from roughly 32 trains per day to 70 trains per day. Prior to the reconstruction, only one train, traveling at 5 miles per hour, could cross the bridge at a time.[4] [5] Following the renovation, two trains could pass each other simultaneously on the bridge at up to in speed. In addition, the bridge can now handle a, an increase from about, and can support a railcar weight capacity of, an increase from . The final cost of the project was $222 million.[6]